22 June 2014 1:32 AM

Why do we grovel to China's tyrants? Because bankrupts can't be choosers

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday Column

This was the week we kow-towed to China, bowing low to the new masters of the world. The poor Queen was compelled to receive Peking’s Premier, Li Keqiang, below, who was not on a state visit and was not entitled to such a meeting.

This miserable moment had to happen, as we are more or less bankrupt and we have to take money and investment from anyone who will give it to us, at any price.

I have visited China many times. It is an exciting and energetic place. But it is also an unpleasant, corrupt, cruel police state, in which people fear to speak their minds and opponents of the regime disappear. All media are harshly censored and punished when they rebel.

The Communist Party, responsible for countless murders and one of the worst man-made famines in human history, still dominates the government, and its officials deal brutally with those who stand in their way.

I know personally of one woman whose house was demolished around her because she defied the one-child policy. Others have been forced to have abortions.

China ruthlessly colonises its neighbours. Most people know about Tibet – and I wonder how long it will be before the exiled Dalai Lama is welcomed at a high level in London again. Something tells me it will be the far side of never. Money talks.

But fewer are aware of events in Sinkiang. There, China is busily overwhelming the Turkic, Muslim people who have lived there for thousands of years, by organised and state-sponsored mass immigration.

Well, bankrupts can’t be choosers. But the Cabinet that smarmily welcomed Comrade Li Keqiang is the same one that is always hot to intervene against tyranny and misgovernment in Iraq, Libya and Syria, and which haughtily condemns Russia for annexing Crimea.

Let’s not have any more of this. It’s obvious that we don’t really care about human rights or aggression. We just like to think we do. Principle is principle, and if you won’t stand up to the big bullies, then you shouldn’t try to cover up your poverty and cowardice by hounding the small ones.

Tom may learn, but Cameron never will

The new film Edge Of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, both above in a scene from the movie, allows the main character to live the same events over and over again until he gets them right.

But would this work on politicians? They never seem to learn anything from their own experience, or from history. Take our Prime Minister and his nutty, pointless battle to block the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as Supreme Smoothie of the EU. I carry no torch for Mr Juncker, but why bother?

The European Union has cupboards and attics crammed with grey, discreet men and women who would readily step in if Mr Juncker were rejected. Within a week, you couldn’t tell the difference.

To object to him because he is a ‘federalist’ is like objecting to a bicycle because it has wheels. Of course he is a ‘federalist’. The entire EU is federalist. That is what it is for. Come to that, Mr Cameron – who supports the EU – is a federalist, and the whole Tory Party is federalist.

This has been obvious to anyone at all observant for years and years, as has the fact that the EU, like a monster in a swamp, cannot be defeated by anyone in that swamp. The moment you think you have outwitted the monster, as poor Mrs Thatcher did, it will rise from the slime behind you and gobble you up.

The EU is, as I keep pointing out, the continuation of Germany by other means – though, unlike in 1914 and 1939, this time it is Germany with full American backing.

Why don’t our conventional politicians learn from years of repeated experience on these lines? Because they don’t want to.

Far too little fuss has been made this week about the brilliant and perceptive remarks of Dominic Cummings, a former government apparatchik now on the loose. If he’d been Ed Miliband’s ex-aide, the row would still be going on.

As well as pointing out that politicians are in fact as dim as you think they are, and there is no secret room containing smart people who actually know what they are doing, he said this of the Tory Party and its attitude towards the EU.

It is ‘whining, rude, dishonest, unpleasant, childishly belligerent in public while pathetically craven in private, and overall hollow’.

A bit mild for me, but unusually close to the truth for a political operator.

Bennett rewrites history for the boys

The BBC favourite Alan Bennett, right, has grown soft with too much flattery. He is even praised for making a paedophile teacher the hero of The History Boys, a bad, crude, ignorant play and a worse film.

Now he has delivered a silly class-war sermon attacking private schools. Doesn’t he realise that many snob-free homes make huge sacrifices to buy their children out of the comprehensive school disaster?

Probably not. He appears to know nothing of Britain since about 1964, which is probably the last time anyone dared criticise him. He said in his sermon that he had once expected grammar schools to ‘gradually overtake’ public schools in getting their pupils into Oxford and Cambridge. Then he vaguely mused that it ‘didn’t happen’.

He is utterly, spectacularly, hog-whimperingly opposite-of-the truth wrong about this. It did happen. By 1965, grammar and direct grant schools got 57 per cent of Oxford places, and public schools 41 per cent. The state school share was rising every year.

But then Mr Bennett’s Left-wing friends smashed up the grammar schools, and abolished the direct grants, and it all went backwards, as it has ever since. It is them he should be attacking, not independent schools, which often strain themselves to offer free places to poor children, but cannot replace the grammars that Mr Bennett’s comrades smilingly, hatefully destroyed.

►► I actually shook with rage listening to Richard Hawkes of Scope on Radio 4 last Tuesday, blandly defending his charity’s plan to shut down its larger old-fashioned homes where some people have lived happily for 30 years or more.

He had just listened to a recording of several such residents, saying quite clearly that they were happy as they were and did not want to move. But he then declared that ‘disabled people’ were ‘telling us’ that they did not want to live in such places.

I am used to big organisations claiming to know what I want better than I do. ‘There’s no call for it,’ they say, as they stop providing something I like, from thick-cut marmalade to quiet carriages.

But that’s just stupid. Turning these people out of their happy home is cruel as well as stupid. If you give to Scope, tell them to drop this unkind policy.

Gillian, just noticed that my hasty reply to you could be misinterpreted as me stating a personal belief in Mr Ike and his 'reptilian overlord theory'.......i assume and hope that you did not interpret this as such.......but anyway, despite Mr Ike having addressed the Cambridge Union no less, i can clearly state that for me, his theories hold no interest.

You are simply expanding what is meant by natural science, if you do think the historical method can fit within natural science. One could, then, say literary criticism or philosophy or many other disciplines and methodologies are scientific. This is fine, the problems only arise when one forgets one has expanded the meaning of science and tries to reduce all these other methodologies to the scientific method proper. You have also made the implications behind your original scientistic swipe at others trivial - those who do not accept the strict scientific method as the only means for truth are, you yourself seem to now admit, not wrong or silly.

The heart, the paradigm, of natural science is investigating the quantitatively measurable and testable aspects of reality. This is most especially true in physics, which many of the scientistic would reduce all science to. Such a view is simply mistaken. That is my point, whatever designation you give to the term scientific.

Actually, the existence of the external world is a philosophical assumption that natural science relies on. It relies on philosophy is many, many ways. It relies on the assumption of the uniformity of nature, on the intelligibility of nature; it relies on philosophy to understand causation, to categorise reality, to make sense of the evidence of natural science, to understand the full context of the picture of reality natural science gives us. And, of course, science relies on logic (which itself is influenced by metaphysics - nominalism destroys our ability to grasp universals which are at the heart of deductive logic). So, it is hard to take seriously the notion natural science is not dependent on philosophy.

On morality, we can use your own claim. The claim all morality is opinion is a claim of knowledge about morality, so if you are saying we cannot have moral knowledge, you are contradicting yourself. This is the contradiction of relativism and scepticism (famously, the radical sceptic claim that we cannot have knowledge is a knowledge claim) . We can have some moral knowledge at least, as this proves. But more centrally my point is not to debate the intricacies of moral philosophy here (this just isn't the setting - debating a proof of God would be easier in a combox than a serious discussion of ethics and meta-ethics), but simply to note that you cannot ignore the long and contentious debates in moral philosophy by just asserting morality is a matter of opinion. This shows no knowledge of discipline and is most unconvincing. Even sensible and knowledgeable moral sceptics and nihilists will not accept that such unsupported assertions, with no attempt to grapple with the differing viewpoints of moral philosophy, is the slightest bit persuasive.

and so my spectrum of belief would include at one 'extreme', macro evolution, and at the other end, perhaps David Ikes reptile overlords.

Posted by: a Libertarian Socialist | 03 July 2014 at 02:37 PM

Ha ha! Well I would never have guessed. Never been able to read any David Ike myself but often wonder if those 'reptilian over Lords' aren't really some fictional symbolic representation of other secret groups that may or may not be shuffling around in the shadows influencing popular culture, films music vids and what have you. Thanks for reply.

We cannot claim to know something is true without supporting evidence, and once there is evidence to support a faith it ceases to become a faith by definition.
Posted by: Andrew Platt | 03 July 2014 at 12:45 PM

I suppose it depends on what constitutes 'evidence'. Also as someone reasonably new to 'faith', some things have occurred in my life which prove way beyond all reasonable doubt to me, that Jesus is who the Bible says He is. It continues to be a 'walk of faith', because on a day to day basis I do not know where I am going or quite what I am going to do when I get there. Its kind of like learning an entirely new language. One which everyone understands but only some choose to hear. Its very much a matter of time, and there are many pitfalls. The 'Eternal Truth' that I depend on can be found in the words of the song 'Amazing Grace'. If 'evolution' turns out to have some validity it makes no difference to me whatsoever.

I have read the theory that what we know as domestic dogs were in fact bread by selection from wolves over many years. This 'theory' makes no sense to me so I view the whole idea with a great deal of skepticism. I like that I can think freely on these things and do not have to settle on one idea because a mountain of evidence says I should. 'Evidence' no matter how many mountains of it there appear to be, can change the moment some new thing not formally considered is found.

That is why I don't believe evolution should be taught as 'truth' but as a theoretical perspective.

Gillian, 'fruity belief systems' was merely my way of characterising/referencing different belief systems, which some here - Alan (not 'Andrew'; appologies sir for my earlier name typo) Platt - consider dangerous/damaging. I do not thin them damaging, as i expalined in my previous post.

As you say Gillian, it boils down to 'perspective', and so my spectrum of belief would include at one 'extreme', macro evolution, and at the other end, perhaps David Ikes reptile overlords.

My reply to Gillian and John does not seem to have been posted and foolishly I failed to save a copy. I will briefly try again.

I think John misunderstands the scientific method. Although experimentation is an important part it is by no means essential. There is precious little direct experimentation possible in astronomy, for example, yet it still uses the scientific method. The inability to perform experiments in history does not therefore mean it uses a different method, and what he describes as the “historical method” seems to me to be indistinguishable from the scientific method.

Neither am I convinced that science depends on philosophy, beyond the “everything I experience could be an illusion” argument. If we accept the observable world exists, everything else flows from observation. We certainly do not need philosophy to tell us that the world is intelligible and follows certain rules: we *observe* this to be true. The technology we take for granted relies upon it.

If he wants to argue we can have moral knowledge, can he please give me an example of one such piece of moral knowledge?

I am a little concerned Gillian objects to evolution being taught as truth. It is the truth!

There are mountains of evidence to support it and not one shred of evidence to discredit it. I urge Gillian to look at the evidence for herself and make her own mind up. Religious belief need not be a barrier as I gather both the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury accept the truth of evolution.

The difference between this and the various faiths Gillian mentions is, crucially, evidence. We cannot claim to know something is true without supporting evidence, and once there is evidence to support a faith it ceases to become a faith by definition.

"School structure and child development would be achieved by accepting that children only learn and ‘remember’ (an important part of the equation) things that they are interested in. So giving children experiences and letting them know - and then develop - what they are good at, would produce highly engaged and high achieving children. More teachers per child would be required, but the additional expense would be worth it. Exposure to all belief systems would be encouraged, as I think many people, if they learned about the more ‘fruity’ systems of knowledge amongst their peers would then be better able to understand and accept/or reject these bodies of knowledge. Also, I would let children not interested in academic study to change to vocational type training, from say, age 15. It seems to me that a system like this would produce doctors and lawyers, plumbers and hair-dressers, and even creation-scientists - depending on the child’s aptitude and interest - though hopefully not in equal numbers…!"

Libertarian socialist, (if you still here)

While I cant imagine what you mean by 'fruity' belief systems, I have to say the above comment seems to me practical and sensible. The other girls in my 'peer group' all took office practice type classes when we opted for exam courses at school. The very thought of which made my blood freeze. I loved poetry above all else something that gave them a similar feeling.

My husband loathes the idea of study further than what he wants to know, but is very practical carpentry, wiring, pretty well anything. People call on him when they need things fixing. Yet his school days were grim. What use a school that takes no notice of individual gifts and talents?

The field of historical knowledge is not the same as the that of natural science. Natural science deals with the quantitatively measurable and testable aspects of empirical phenomena. This is what those obsessed with it are always banging on about - how it is so clearly based on what we can repeatedly test and quantify. It does make for a very convincing and powerful kind of knowledge, in its own field at least. History is not the same. History is not quantitatively testable, for the most part, and you cannot make use of the scientific method of experiment and testing.
Historians make use of sources to try to reconstruct the past, often making great use of their own intuitions of how to put the the sources together. It is naturally a less clear cut sort of method, demanding different skills, using different evidence, and giving different results. Now, of course, you could expand the meaning of natural science, but then you'd just be playing with words and you'd dilute the entire purpose of calling history a part of science to begin with.

When you say metaphysics et al are matters of opinion, this just begs the question, as this is a hugely contentious claim and what you'd need to prove, yet you give no proper argument for it. The best you do is mention disagreement. That we can disagree about morality, for example, is certainly no reason that we cannot have moral knowledge. That is just a non sequitur: it doesn't follow. It does imply, I think, the scientistic mentality, that what we can take seriously as knowledge is only what we show to the senses on demand.

What is certainly not a matter of opinion is that natural science relies on philosophy. It relies on it in a most basic way, such as to make assumptions about the external empirical world (like it exists, it is intelligible and the like, it acts uniformly, and so on); it relies on logic (and metaphysics does matter to logic: nominalism undermines the grasp of universal concepts at the heart of deduction); and it relies on philosophy to evaluate and categorise the evidence and findings of science, and to give them a context in our understanding of all reality. And that philosophy can be so useful to natural science in this way, but basically prior or independent to it, means a good reason must be given - not empty assertions - why it cannot investigate in the fields proper to it, like morality, without reference to natural science (except where it must take information from the proper field of science), I'm not sure.

Science is dependent on philosophy. Even the claim that all knowledge is scientific is not a scientific claim but a philosophical one (t is therefore self-defeating by repudiating philosophy).

I do believe that at least part of the reason the climate is changing is due to mankind’s activities. This does not come from brainwashing but a realisation that without an atmosphere to trap heat the earth would be well below freezing point at this distance from the sun, so changing the composition of that atmosphere can hardly avoid changing the amount of heat trapped.
Posted by: Andrew Platt | 30 June 2014 at 11:02 AM

Hi Andrew, thanks for your response. I have always thought I do not believe in man made global warming, even when, as I recall, someone argued from a Biblical perspective on here. Cant for the life of me recall the argument, but I seem to recall Chernobyl being flagged up. However I have just been thinking that the human body can be poisoned if too much alcohol, smoke etc gets into it. So I might have to rethink that. I do believe in climate change. Mostly because of the ice ages. Also I read somewhere that the Romans when they invaded made wine from grapes that grew here due to it being so warm. What I really believe as 'Truth' however is the Bible warnings of famines earth quakes etc. Just add that bit so you know where I'm coming from if you didn't guess already.

Personally I have no problem with evolution being taught in schools. To my mind it is simply a particular perspective. I do object to it being taught as truth though. Probably in much the same way you object to various faiths laying claim to 'Truth'.

RE was taught as was any other subject when I was at school. To my way of thinking it was treated no differently to any other subject. Why has it now been singled out as somehow different? ( I mean now I claim to have faith I do see it as different) but befor that it was information to be 'learned' or not, the same as any other subject.

Most of my school friends wouldn't think of themselves as historians, yet we all had to study, in those days, the kings and queens. I do not know any scientists from those days boiling things over bun son burners. Yet we had to study science.

I have become a Christian, quite late in life really and I doubt it has anything to do with 'lessons' all those years ago. So I am very interested to understand why people object to RE. Regards

Rosie, thanks for the update, i think the film maker of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ makes repeated attempts to link the content to the title.

.…by ‘virtuous people’, I assume that you are referring to the ordinary person who takes a job in order to earn ‘money’. However, the reward system can be, and is distorted, by those who stand to gain the most. For example, the City exchange trader is encouraged, because of the commission structure, to make short-term plays on the market because this makes the most money for his client. Although this is good for the client, such activity is not good for the real economy. And in terms of virtue, both the client and the trader may be ‘good people’, they might even give half their incomes to charity.

Unfortunately, it’s just the way the world of money currently works. But this ‘world of money’ - artificial creation as it is, can be changed - but this is why structural change is recommended. The medical and other professions don’t have the same temptations on offer. Although, for example, we’ve heard of dentists who recommend treatment just to earn more, this is the exception, and such dentists are usually discovered and punished - something noticeably lacking in the finance industry, even though the harm is substantially and quantifiably greater.

Firstly, I think that ‘self-supporting network of errors’ you mention does sound a very strange and serious place - but occupied I think - by only a very few and probably very lonely individuals. Such people mean the rest of us no harm (as i’ve said before). I would be more concerned with the very well heeled and educated bankers of this world. A cheap shot perhaps?.......but in regard to those who write letters to newspapers (e.g. that self-selecting(?) ‘Christian’ you mention) - I think these are typically unrepresentative, strange types (not to be confused, of course, with the far more intelligent and astute blogger!).

But as for the far more serious topic of education, actually I wouldn’t seek to prescribe a national school syllabus, nor tell individual children what they should learn…something lkin to a nationally rolled-out 'Summer Hill School' perhaps. ‘Educational targets’ (for want of a better term) would be defined by Universities and Employers - politicians don’t need to get involved.

School structure and child development would be achieved by accepting that children only learn and ‘remember’ (an important part of the equation) things that they are interested in. So giving children experiences and letting them know - and then develop - what they are good at, would produce highly engaged and high achieving children. More teachers per child would be required, but the additional expense would be worth it. Exposure to all belief systems would be encouraged, as I think many people, if they learned about the more ‘fruity’ systems of knowledge amongst their peers would then be better able to understand and accept/or reject these bodies of knowledge. Also, I would let children not interested in academic study to change to vocational type training, from say, age 15. It seems to me that a system like this would produce doctors and lawyers, plumbers and hair-dressers, and even creation-scientists - depending on the child’s aptitude and interest - though hopefully not in equal numbers…!

By the way, i dont consider this to be my ‘libertarian’ politics speaking. It’s more to do with recognising how very inefficient our current national 'mass schooling’ is. It is mostly just child-care for 5-18 year olds. And after 12 years of 'learning', the average pupil is not adequately prepared for work, nor for that of further education.

I think a system such as the above begins to show how baron the debate is concerning whether a school should be a comprehensive/grammer school…… whether it be single-sex or rules about uniforms …….class streaming and theories about ‘how to achieve discipline’ also go out of the window (so to speak).

History was never my subject so I am intrigued to learn from John that there is something called the “Historical Method”. Can he elucidate please? I naively assumed that history used something similar to the scientific method, though obviously without the opportunity to conduct experiments. Does it not still rely on observations leading to theories, which the researcher then seeks to support or disprove by uncovering documented evidence?

As for metaphysics, morality, art and so forth, these are all matters of opinion. That is not to dismiss them as worthless of course, but simply to question whether they can be categorised as knowledge. We cannot “know” that slavery is immoral because there was a time when it was not considered so. Note that although neither science nor morality is immutable, it is for very different reasons: morality because of changing human fashions, science because of the constant uncovering of new data.

It could be that Gillian thinks I was attacking religion with my comment about brainwashing but the context John and I were discussing it in was the classroom. I do think, however, that all the items she lists – advertising, film and TV, politics, religion – can all be considered forms of brainwashing. And yes, Gillian, I do believe that at least part of the reason the climate is changing is due to mankind’s activities. This does not come from brainwashing but a realisation that without an atmosphere to trap heat the earth would be well below freezing point at this distance from the sun, so changing the composition of that atmosphere can hardly avoid changing the amount of heat trapped.

Steady on now, kicking words with more than one usage into touch is rather harsh. English would surely be much poorer were that to happen.

Posted by: Alan Thomas | 28 June 2014 at 08:11 PM

Maybe maybe not... I'm sure I don't know. Can I think of a single word that has different meanings at this moment in time? Not one that would be useful to make my point though I know there are many. But... Where a word has had its meaning altered in some way... So that what was once a simple matter of 'tidiness' be it you or your pet, has now become tainted with something quite ugly. I would fall over if I ever heard anyone argue that they didn't want children 'groomed' into a scientific education.

And if people insist on learning about Christianity through Margaret Atwood or regarding what gets presented on tv as somehow Christian or viewing Holy Wars as representative of Christ... Well not much hope there! No wonder they don't want RE taught in schools! Obviously there are other religions to be considered why not teach a bit about them all?

Why is brainwashing and 'grooming' only mentioned in the context of RE?

On democracy, more can be said than I have previously. Whilst I did say that if democracy means counting heads then it doesn't matter what size it is, this is not even the whole story here. It is not just a matter of adding criteria like accountability to counting heads, where one's definition of democracy can vary. Democracy means, of course, rule of the people and classical democracy - in Athens and Thebes - took that quite seriously. In these polities the people took a large share in the day to day running of the city state. Now, in modernity we (although in the 18th century it was disputed) have tended to accept that representative democracy can stand in for direct democracy, and the people rule to almost the same degree. But representative democracy is a layer of mediation between the people and the government, and the larger the state the less voice and role for the average person there can be in running the state. Indeed, there is even less basic accountability in a larger state. All rule of the people means here is that the government must get the most MPs at the election every few years. This is quite an atrophy of the idea of democracy.

So it is not even a case of just adding other criteria to counting heads. Democracy, as rule of the people, does tend to palpably lessen the larger the state.

There is more to it than even this (I'm not a democrat per se myself), and one could talk about the fact that even in the smallest democratic bodies there tends to be a natural leadership or aristocracy. As John Adams pointed out, if you took a hundred people of he street and formed them into a popular assembly, you'd soon find that twenty-five could command another vote besides their won. But I certainly do not think it absurd to think that size matters in democracy or in any government.

In my response to Andrew Platt, that should have been "it wouldn't follow there are no areas science can say little about".

bunker,

The problem with streams, as I said, is that the children are just streamed for some classes. They still spend some classes with other children and, of course, at a school with. This means they cannot be in an immersive and complete atmosphere geared to the academically gifted

But I agree with you that there should be routes for those who academically mature at a later age than 11. And I agree with you uniforms and on unisex schools.

PS just to be clear, I no longer object to the word 'grooming' in quite the same way as I did. Though I still believe the word is generally used to silence religious people arguing that RE should be maintained in schools.

But thanks to Allan Thomas informing me the word means 'to prepare a person' I realise you can apply the word to pretty much any scenario where 'a person' (or child) is being 'prepared' for something. ie back in the day when we were introduced to tripod stands and bunson burners in the school science lab, those who use that sort of language might say we were being groomed for a future career in some scientific field.

In other words the word is now essentially meaningless and should be added to the list of useless words which now clutter the English language.

John, I think we both agree on grammar schools. They are surely excellent institutions. The one I went to was, and still is. As I said, I have no experience of the British education system over the past sixty years but here in Germany we have comprehensives too. And I see no reason (in theory at least) why they can't be so streamed that there are A,B and C forms according to ability. With mobility between them whenever necessary, since some kids only 'become bright' at a later age than eleven.

In the A-forms, the kids will no more be held back by less academic children than they are at a grammar school. - And if gifted and less gifted children mix outside of class, I think that might have a salutary effect on both of them. But I may be wrong.

I hope you noticed that I said I was in favour of school uniforms and even separate schools for boys and girls. Any views on that?

John is right that there are different kinds of knowledge. There is that which is based on observation, experiment, evidence and deduction – and that which isn’t! How can we have any confidence in that which falls in the latter category? If we have no confidence in it, how can it really be considered “knowledge”? @ Andrew Platt

Again for clarity. Most adults who read my comment on 'grooming' would 'know' what my objection to using the word, in the specific context of talking about religious education, is. I suppose someone who demands empirical evidence that they 'know' without my having to spell it out might say I would be trusting certain assumptions. Otherwise in communications do we not rely on commonly held 'knowledge', or 'beliefs' arn't these called intuitions? Isn't that a different kind of knowledge that can be observed?

"But if democracy means accountability, responsibility, and a voice for the average citizens then it would be absurd to think that the smaller the polity the better these will be achieved."

This should have read "it would be absurd not to think", and I should have stressed in general and not that a smaller polity will always do better than a larger one.

Your response to Andrew Platt on grammar schools seems to show you ignored my points on this topic. And, of course, my points were just those our host makes regularly, so it is strange such an old hand like yourself doesn't know them.

Streams means that the gifted spend some classes away from the less academic children. However, they are still in a school whose ethos and organisation must cater to all academic levels. And they must spend a considerable part of their school time with those children who are lower achievers. Therefore, a grammar school would seem almost bound to be a better environment for the gifted.

There is, I suppose though, the question of whether taking out the most academically gifted students harms the education of those less gifted, by drawing out the more serious students from their schools. But I think here the better solution is adapting the secondary modern to the needs of those whose talents are not academic - such as technical and vocational training and the like - as well as maintaining discipline and a good school ethos, than getting rid of grammar schools.

It depends what field of investigation you are talking about. Natural science deals only with external, empirical phenomena and, for the most part, only with the quantifiably measurable and testable aspects of these phenomena. If you want to investigate other fields of reality then we use different methods. For example, for historical knowledge much of it must be investigated according to the historical method. If you wish to gain knowledge of areas like metaphysics, philosophy of nature, morality, art, and so forth, then one will have to use philosophy.

To point at computers and say what knowledge so tangible has come from other sources than natural science is to beg the question. It is assume that the only worthwhile knowledge is scientific and technical and that the other forms of knowledge have no produced worthwhile knowledge. The identification of this fallacy in your argument is, interestingly, an illustration of the knowledge that philosophy can offer.

Besides, even if history or philosophy and other forms of knowledge except the scientific could give us little reliable knowledge (a claim I think false, not least because of science's reliance on philosophy). It wouldn't follow there are areas which science can say little about. It would just mean we could gain little knowledge at all in these areas.

Brian Meredith,

If that is correct, why is it claimed the Archbishop helped to save Jews and Serbs and publicly denounced the atrocities? Maybe you are correct, to a degree at least, but at the moment it is not convincing without a lot more detail and corroboration.

bunker,

Your response on democracy offers no argument or detail. As I said, it entirely depends on what one means by democracy. I certainly admit there is little difference between a democracy of two thousand and a billion, except logistics, if democracy is just a matter of counting heads. But if democracy means accountability, responsibility, and a voice for the average citizens then it would be absurd to think that the smaller the polity the better these will be achieved.

Depending on what he has in mind I might agree with him (or her?) about the brainwashing of children by the state school system, but certainly not if those concerns include evolution, global warming – or the age of the earth!
Posted by: Andrew Platt | 27 June 2014 at 05:21 PM

To clarify, do you believe in man made global warming? And brainwashing in general? Is that the sort of political 'brainwashing' that occurs with 'propaganda' etc or the mind numbing effects of too much advertising, tv Hollywood history and all that sort of thing. Are these things considered 'brainwashing' or is it only the Bible and other world faiths you take issue with?

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the moderator has approved them. They must not exceed 500 words. Web links cannot be accepted, and may mean your whole comment is not published.